Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Holy crap! They;ve found the missing link! This skeletal remain has been eluding anthropologists, religion peeps, and just about everyone for as long as I can remember. When I was living in Africa, that's all anyone would talk about, this so-called missing link and "Lucy". Here's a freaky part from the Timesonline article:

"This is something you find once in a lifetime," Dr Zeresenay said. "Unlike Lucy, the baby has fingers, a foot and a torso. But the most impressive difference between them is that this baby has a face."

The skeleton has a face! Holy hell!

Another interesting part from the article:

The entire skull and torso and most of the upper and lower limbs are present, providing an unprecedented look at a hominin child in the process of development. While other juvenile fossils exist, such as the 2.5 million year old Taung child of the species Australopithecus africanus, they are known only from fragments of skull, bone or teeth.

Selam’s leg and foot bones show her to have been already adept at walking upright even at the age of three, showing conclusively that A. afarensis was an accomplished biped.

Her upper body, however, is more enigmatic: her shoulder blades are similar to those of a modern gorilla, while he fingers are long and curved, like those of a chimpanzee. The canals of her inner ear — important for balance — are also quite chimp-like.

---also, I guess they found her tongue bone so Little Lucy was well on her way to becoming a good speaker...